Secrets

The article says: “In a highly unusual move, Israeli authorities have barred the country’s media from publishing Talansky’s name – revealed now in The Post – saying it could hamper their investigation.” The move is really unusual, because the Israeli press is one of the freest in the world. But for the Israeli government, it is stupid in a very usual way.

This is called “Israbluff”. We can’t even censor things properly. In the really rare occasion when a news story, a song or a movie is censored in Israel, it causes it to be immediately published everywhere. The bad thing about it is not the silly censorship itself. When a state uses law to try and make people not do something, which they will do anyway, it will make people disrespect the law even when it does good things.